New UK anti-terrorism ads are just plain scary

I just came across this on Boing Boing and had to post it here.


That's right. Don't look at the cameras. If you see someone looking at the cameras, report them to the police.

This is one of the two new ads for an "anti-terrorist awareness campaign" in London. You know, the city where George Orwell wrote Nineteen Eighty-Four.

The other ad:


All I can say is holy crap.

A few months ago ACLU partner organization Privacy International released a ranking of the world's worst surveillance societies. England was among the worst offenders, an "endemic surveillance society" along with Russia, China, Singapore, and Malaysia. Oh yeah, and also the United States.

Exactly four months ago today New York City switched on the Lower Manhattan Security Initiative, based on London's "Ring of Steel" surveillance network. Wave one features 156 cameras, but the plan is to eventually expand to three thousand cameras, according to New York police commissioner Raymond Kelly.

The ACLU has published a white paper summarizing comprehensive research that demonstrates video surveillance does nothing to improve crime.

[Note: This also comes only one day after a report concluded that one quarter of all government databases in the UK are "fundamentally flawed and almost certainly illegal."]

Chris in Philly